Death is in Love with Me
by YourWorstDaydream
Summary: Welcome to ZoMBieLaND! The food's molding, the women are dead, and I'm locked in a room with something that isn't quite human... AU, OOC, YAOI [hiatus]


AN: _This is set in an alternate universe and is _extremely _OOC! Don't count on fast updates, but be prepared for graphicness. Idk if anyone's ever done a zombie fic for FF7 before, but hopefully this will be something new! Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't. Here's to hoping you do!_

_**This is unbeta'd**__… because I'm just doing this in a fit of boredom. __If you see anything that's buggy, please PM me.  
I hold no responsibility for my thoughts or actions anywhere between the hours of midnight and 6am._

Edit: 6/11?: _OMG you guys! Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! Much loves! I didn't expect to get such a great responce for a first chapter! If I had known then I would have done more chapters before I put this up so there wouldn't be so much waiting.  
Good news: I'm not abandoning this.  
Bad news: I'm not updating until my other story is completed. I tried to do two stories at the same time, but I realized too late that I'm still mediocre at writing and I can only do one thing at a time. If anyone new is coming in and seeing this AN, please don't let it get you down. I hope you still enjoy the chapter._

**Rated**: M  
**Pairing(s)**: Cloud x Sephiroth will become the main pairing; Cloud x Zack is strongly hinted; also mentioned Cloud x Everyone else  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own FF7 or its characters, nor do I own zombies, Zombieland, or any zombie movie plots. I make no profit from this and am merely writing for my (and your) entertainment.  
_**iWarning**_! You just bought hot pockets!

**Death is in Love with Me  
****Intro: ZoMBieLaND**

Hi, hello, is this thing on?

Good, I was hoping to have a commentary that would pause the moment before the thing in the test tube wakes up to eat at my screaming corpse. Which is funny, actually, 'cause even though I'll be dead my body will still scream as it… ok, maybe it's not funny to you, but I'm the one that's going to be dead soon so I'll find humor in any way I please.

The name's Cloud. I was born with a different name though. Maybe Clark, Claude… _Kyle_? No one ever remembered my name anyways so that's what the younger kids dubbed me with in a little place they called _Paradise_, which was actually a school… ironic, right? I'll get to that particular story later, but how I ended up with Strife as a last name is a different matter entirely. It was given to me by chain rumors. One person spoke of me to another, and that person traveled to tell others, who in turn told others, and somewhere along the word of passing the name Strife was added on.

You see, there's something about trying to survive that reduces your morals to zero, and I'm going to tell you a few things I've learned while during my travels in this hellhole. One thing is to never ever, under any circumstance, trust any innocent-looking, blond-haired, blue-eyed, puppy dog-faced guy traveling alone. Chances are you'll have everything stolen, and I mean _everything_.

Yes, I am that bastard that everyone's been talking about, and karma must have finally caught up with me. The people that I've been formerly acquainted with have me locked in a room that contains the body of the living dead, and when I say 'living dead' I don't mean the cool shit like vampires. No, I'm talking about zombies, monsters that eat the flesh of the living and turn those corpses into more zombies. The reason why they did that is a little complicated, or not too complicated at all, really. It was done all out of spite, but you should probably hear more about my past before you begin to judge me.

I used to be a zombie freak… _used to be_… past tense, as in _not anymore_. I used to watch movies about those rotten corpses slowly walking toward people, waiting as the intensity of the protagonists' death came into play as they realized they had nowhere to run and could only scream as they were slowly being eaten alive. Of course, it only got better as zombies evolved right on the big screen, running… _sprinting_… calling out 'brains' like it was a mantra. I loved them all… all except that one where the zombies started conversing with their prey. That didn't make any sense.

Actually, there's still maybe one zombie movie out there that I think is ok. Zombieland. It actually made me think in a way that helped me survive this meat eating apocalypse. I even named this era after it in dedication to its extremely loose and nonobjective plot.

Yes, in my poor adolescent childhood I was a dork… dweeb, nerd, whatever name you could think to call me as an insult -yet in reality gave me credit to my intelligence- that was me.

But I digress. The point being, I knew how to kill zombies, which the vast majority of the population didn't because they thought those movies weren't good necking material. Then again, I wasn't even old enough to know what 'necking' was, so I was perfectly fine being alone with my popcorn as I watched those R rated horror movies in the dark.

I once even thought it would be cool if zombies were actually real. Boy was I ignorant, but on a good note I was also one of the very few people who knew what was really going on when the preverbal shit hit the fan. Everyone thought it was some strange new cult cannibalizing people. _I_ hoped that it was just my childish imagination trying to merge fantasy with reality, but I couldn't deny what I was seeing on the TV the moment I witnessed a person, who had just been torn apart and by all rights should be dead, get up and start eating someone else. That's when I knew that I had to train harder, and props to Zombieland again for the idea. And yes, I was used to training already… had to get away from those big, bad elementary school bullies after all.

When people caught on to the fact that zombies really existed they were running around scared, and you know how stupid frightened people can get… even more stupid. It was unknown as to how the infection spread, unless you knew of someone that had watched a zombie film, but what most _did_ figure out was that the infected got sick before they died. What they never thought to learn was the difference between the symptoms of a common cold and the actual virus.

So in between the days in which people turned into man eating monsters, some poor sap gets a small case of the flue due to over exhaustion. Oh, wait, now he's dead because someone freaked out and shot him in the head. Score one for the zombies.

Another thing I noticed is that the undead start taking characteristics of the actual dead. Their hair color fades out more over time, their eyes dull, and this next thing kind of depends on the zombie… but either their skin becomes really pale or it starts to fade blue. I figure this is because some zombies breathe while others don't, which also means that some of them still have working hearts.

The biggest difference between the movie zombies and _these _zombies is the fact that ours are superior to us humans, and I don't mean just the running. I mean better, faster, stronger… the only thing we still have left to keep us on equal footing with the undead is our ability to think and adjust. At least some of us, anyways…

There's this book that I read a few years ago about the human brain. It said that we have a blocking mechanism in our minds that makes us unable to use even half of what's there, and in that aspect it causes us not to use our full muscle strength either. So my theory is that whatever trigger is being blocked by our consciousness as humans must be let loose as our ability to rationalize flees from our minds upon death.

The good thing about zombies is that they can't tell when they're getting tired, and they'll just randomly fall down during a good, hard run. The bad thing is that most of the time the zombies catch their prey before that happens… mainly because the world consists of poor, lazy bastards.

Now I bet you're wondering how I know that zombies collapse. Well, I'm one of the few people that got away from a horde chase, which happens a lot more than I like, and the only reason as to how I accomplished that is because I'm _always_ working on my cardio! Yeah, that was supposed to have sounded a little less sarcastic, but this room is getting colder by the minute via whatever coolant that's now flowing from out of this guy's tube. You try sounding happy when placed in my situation.

God… he must have been in there a really long time for him to have died so young and yet have that pale hair color.

Shit, where was I?

Cardio… running… zombies… let's _talk_ _more_ about zombies! Unfortunately, I don't know how it all started because I was too young to care about any type of news that might have given a clue, but what I can tell you is how to kill them!

Killing Zombies 101: _Shoot them in the _fucking head_!_

Any sort of major trauma to the brain is good enough, actually.

I tell people this all the time, but handfuls of ammunition are still being wasted on single targets because they continue to aim for the chest. "_Oh, no! Please don't eat me, Mr. Zombie!_"

Earlier I said that some zombies might still be breathing, but don't let that fool you into thinking you can stop them by simple asphyxiation. I tried drowning one once… _for science_. It just made the thing even deader and meaner than before, which was also a bitch to clean up. I recommend not testing this experiment yourself unless you have a controlled environment.

It was kinda funny to watch though. Picture it, some undead thing choking to death in a pool. _Haaha. Ahhhh…._

Where do I go from here? I guess I'll tell you why I turned out the way I did. At the tender age of eleven I already had a good pair of legs from dodging bullies, but get this into your head… I wasn't one of those kids that tried to protect their pride and go home bruised. No-no. I ran away. I ran away like a bitch, and don't you forget that! Sometimes I'd even take different routes to throw them off my track for fear that some would run ahead to surround me.

It was around this time in my adolescence when the virus hit. My parents' mental health was quick to deteriorate, and sometime during the whole 'figuring out how to stay alive' thing they simply killed each other. I guess they thought the other was infected somehow and they just had a moment of insanity, but whatever. I burned their bodies to make sure they wouldn't come back and it made the home feel somewhat safe again, which was another thing that lead me to a higher level of learning.

Zombies love the smell of both the living and the dead, but they hate the smell of burnt flesh… especially coming from one of their own. I think it's some form of basic instinct in the back of their heads that gives them a signal to stay away from danger, but that's just another theory I've created. The problem with burning flesh is that it smells awful, but it wouldn't even matter if you were covered in blueberry jam and dancing naked underneath the pale moon. They will not come within ten feet of the smell of a burnt corpse.

Back then I was getting pretty desperate for food, and I knew that one day I'd have to venture outside the safety of my walls out of hope that there was something still edible out there. My psyche told me to stay, but the pain in my stomach forced me to further test my findings. I actually rubbed the stuff on my clothes and headed outside. I wasn't suicidal. I knew where my escape routes were and was ready to make a run for it if they ever started to gravitate my way. I was overjoyed when they didn't.

There was this girl in my town named Tifa, I don't know if she's still alive… probably not, but she and her friend Johnny were out on a scavenger hunt when they spotted me doing this experiment. I was lucky that they ran out of bullets when they did because my head would have been blown off if not, but I swear they shit a brick when I started talking while surrounded by undead.

That's how they welcomed me into their click, or whatever they called it, located inside the school. It was only because of my findings that they let me stay with them… that, and the fact that I was declared the new scavenger because of it. I didn't mind, I was actually really missing people at that moment and would have done anything for some form of intelligent conversation. I was still treated poorly by what was left of my old group of bullies, still being chased around the halls and such, but it wasn't anything like how it used to be. I think they did it out of boredom, mostly.

There were rules that kept us all safe, and everyone was relatively content… until the jealousy struck. There was a group that used to be appointed to search for food outside, and I guess the title earned them a lot of respect. So when I came in and took that from them, they decided to show everyone that they could do the same thing I could, only better. They covered themselves with the smell of burnt corpse and went outside. Poor Johnny didn't even notice the cut he'd rubbed the infected flesh into, but that's how Tifa's little paradise got breeched.

Those who were left alive after the massacre used me as a scapegoat, and I was tossed aside. All my belongings were taken before they shoved me passed the doors and out into the fray. I was surprised by how lucky I must have been to get away, but I guess that goes to show you what basic instinct can do for the body. After that I traveled between deserted towns and lived in each one until all the edible food was gone, and everything seemed to become easier as I grew older.

I was told different stories by the travelers I came across and was taught different skills that helped my survival, but each one left me with one valuable lesson… don't trust anyone but yourself. Some showed me the pleasure of another's touch, and after I was fast asleep from my release they'd take everything they could carry and leave. They never kissed me. Hell, I didn't want them to. They were men after all, but the women were becoming fucking scarce in this new world… all because of the dipshits that got them pregnant and couldn't defend them. It didn't leave many other options for companionship.

Yet even knowing what they'd do, I still grew fond of partaking in their company. There was just something about someone else's grip that made the experience that much better. So I let them stroke me as they used their other hand to keep me silent. They didn't like hearing my voice during the encounter. I think they somehow fantasized that it was a woman they were pleasuring, and considering I was somewhat small from malnutrition and didn't have their full masculine body build, the image was probably easier to hold on to more than I'd like. It was bad, I guess, being fifteen and already habituated to being used. Hell, I wasn't even surprised when the first man took my gun away from me, my only means of protection.

The days blurred into months that blurred into years, and I was forced to travel to the Eastern Continent when all the towns I found were either stripped bare or blown away. That's when I met Cross. He never told me his real name so I just picked it out because of the odd scarring he had on his cheek, but I remember that he was the nicest person I'd ever met. He was the only one to divert away from the standard routine for when the time came to part.

Cross made it known that he was going to leave in the morning and that he was going to take some things with him. I guess my lack of surprise left an impression because right before he left he… he went down on me, and when I say down… I mean _way down_. I never knew there was an act such as deep throating until then. Yet I panicked at the start when he began trailing kisses down my chest. I wasn't used to such acts, and not once did he try to hold back my moans. I think it was his goal to see how loud I could get… and damn did I get loud when his lips suddenly wrapped around me. I kept his dark spiky locks in a firm grasp as I bucked into the heat of his mouth, and he did everything that I never knew possible to encourage the action.

I don't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up the next morning he was gone. I did get a surprise, though, when I discovered that the only thing he took of mine was the ammunition that complimented his own gun.

After that day I began wondering if there was something wrong with me, something hateful that made people want to stay away… not unlike the instinct that told zombies to stay away from burnt flesh. It was a question that plagued my mind day after day and became the focus of my solitary life, and if my sanity wasn't in question back then… it was now. I didn't want anyone touching me anymore, and I wouldn't let anyone near me for out of fear that all they wanted to do was steal my shit… because _all they wanted to do _was _steal my shit_. It's fuckin' tiring going unarmed into towns that still have the occasional zombie or two loitering around.

Remember when I said that you could outrun zombies if you had enough stamina? Well, when someone with good endurance dies and becomes part of the living dead, they're just able to run that much better. Yeah, those zombie fuckers were getting fast… even for me. I can't remember how many times I've looked death right in the eye, getting away only because I got lucky. Last month would be a perfect example of that. There was a horde of them right behind me and I took a bad turn that lead to a dead end. I was gonna die, but all of a sudden part of the building collapsed right on top of them, giving me just enough time to scale the wall before another wave could scrambled over the debris.

Counting all the near death experiences, the times I'd been screwed over by my own kind, and the fact that I'd been mostly alone even _before_ my parents died… I guess you could say that I'm somewhat lacking in the sanity department, the conversational department, and the sympathy department. It's true what they say, that people weren't made to be alone… especially not in the way that I've been. Not only did I vow not to trust anyone except myself, but I became the same as the people I hated. Hell, I even _tried_ to put others in situations that had low chances of survival… all because I fucking hated them.

I'm sure you could imagine my anger as I once again crossed paths with some of the same men that had stolen from me previously. They were traveling together as a group of five and one of them was Cross. Yeah, even the guy that I once thought was the nicest person in the whole world would rather hang out with them than with me, and they seemed to be getting along rather nicely. So what did I do? _Haa… hahahahaha…_

I tried to fuckin' kill those sonsa bitches.

I know told you that Zombies stayed away from burnt flesh, but did I mention that they'll still follow from a distance?

_**To be continued… **_


End file.
